One of the very real issues that faces scientists of all stripes is the notion that Christianity is necessarily contrary to modern science. The lay press is full of examples of this. Al Mohler and others seem to be taking these battles personally, and I am grateful for their efforts for the integrity of scripture. What follows in this brief series is the story of my own personal reconciliation of these two seemingly divergent positions. Shelve your sneers, dear long time reader, as I tell my story. I will stay out of those types of stories that so irritate me.
If you read my blog, you will know that I am currently following the progress on BioLogos of a discussion of Genesis 1-2 in terms of Calvinism. The discussion is long and convoluted, but quite interesting. I hopefully will be able to start my rebuttal soon, when their series comes to a close. But that is jumping to the end. The beginning is my departure from the Episcopal church over Gene Robinson.
I am currently not proud of the reasons for which I left the Episcopal Church USA. I believe today that the issues are of second order. The first order issues came later, but in the beginning, there was my reading of Paul that was colored by my modern American Evangelical influences. What happened next is important for me, but perhaps not a description of your own path. I went to a different church.
I never felt comfortable in the style and practice of "worship" in a Pentecostal church, and the style of topical preaching always seemed skewed. I thought that it was interesting that a group of people who sneered at Episcopalian knowledge of the Bible received almost no actual Biblical preaching. Lists for moral or ethical improvement filled our "messages" with proof texting being the technique for grounding the messages in scripture. The ability to quote verses by the laity was staggering. But the ability to discuss theology was staggeringly absent.
I became aware of two truths that would need to be addressed if I were to get any clarity in this arena. The first truth is that I knew this was important. My understanding of this truth I would frame differently today, but at that time, I knew that I needed answers to reconcile my scientific vocation with my spritual journey. The second truth is that the stereotype of Biblical illiteracy was true. But it was also more true in the rest of the Christian world than they were willing to admit. Therefore, I was at a loss for how to go about the task of filling this void.
The Bible is a daunting task. Reading it straight through is rough work, even for a motivated man. I felt that if I could find some guidance or framework for inquiry, I would end up reading the whole thing eventually. I put my first toe into the blogosphere...and then I fell into it. There is much to learn and much to read. At the end of all of this, my best advice is use the links on a site. If you don't like where they go, you probably won't like where they start. Those sorts of dead ends are many, but it is surprisingly easy to get a good start.
The key words that first struck me were arguments between Calvinists and Arminians. I had heard of John Calvin, but I had no idea why an ethnic church would be his theological opponent. I had not heard of Jacobus Arminius at that point. Pelagius and Arius were yet to be discovered. The Council of Trent was unknown. And so I started reading about John Calvin.
It is a strange thing to think you have an idea about what something is or isn't and then discover that you didn't even know the issues. As I started to read about Calvinism, I discovered my first set of good teachers. The Pyromaniacs blog was my first home. I learned a lot from Phil, Dan and Frank. I bought and read books by their mentor, John MacArthur. And then I learned my next critical word: dispensationalism.
Next post: The Path to Covenant Theology
--Ogre--
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